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Yarn, stories, and sometimes stories about yarn

… that is the question a lot of us are asking ourselves today. This year I’m choosing to set only those goals I feel I can really achieve. I weighed the various options, checked them all for gauge (couldn’t resist the knitting analogy), and found only a couple really fit the bill. These were the goals I rejected:

Walk the equivalent of a marathon every week

Do yoga every morning

Hit the activity goal set on my fitness tracker every single day

Do online French lessons at least three times a week (an hour each session)

Meditate every day

Read at least 30 books this year

Why did I reject them? They’re all too ambitious, they’re all linked somehow to the broader goal of self-improvement and they all carry with them an abundance of guilt should I fall short of the goal. And I would fall short of these goals. I believe that, when making resolutions and setting goals, we all beat ourselves up way too much when we don’t live up to our own expectations. We’re our own worst critics. I don’t want goals that are going to make me feel more on edge, rushed or frazzled. I want goals that make me feel happy, content and fulfilled. So, these are the ones I came up with:

Write something at least once a day (blog post, an entry on 100words.com, a letter to a friend, make progress on my second novel)

More often than not, when faced with a choice between healthy and unhealthy, choose healthy

That second goal covers the whole self-improvement/self-care spectrum. In restaurants or when eating at home, I’ll try my best to choose something with nutritional value over something easy or comforting, if easy and comforting are unhealthy. In the evening, I’ll either do something creative or active, rather than spending endless hours in front of the TV watching “Big Bang Theory” reruns on TBS. But it also means saying no when that’s what I truly want to do–no to invitations when I’d rather be at home reading or writing, no to changing plans to accommodate others, thereby inconveniencing myself. It also means speaking my mind, rather than keeping feelings bottled up, being myself and not trying to change who I am to impress others. It means being smart about money. The word “mindful” is overused, but it pretty well summarizes that second goal–I’ll think more about my words, actions and behavior and do the right thing, the healthy thing, the compassionate thing and the thing that will bring me contentment more often than the thing that brings momentary (and most often fleeting) satisfaction.

Happy New Year to you all. May you discover what makes you truly happy this year and have it in abundance.